The best laid plans

So tomorrow is Richard's 60th birthday and yesterday I was thinking about his 50th - I threw a party for him and I remember me and Emily picking up the balloons from the gift shop. Lightbulb! I headed off to Blooms & Balloons, who're taking one of my students on placement shortly, and duly snuck into the house with two sets of helium filled Happy Birthday balloons which I stashed upstairs.

And, along with the birthday banners (same place), the cake (in the garage) and the candles (in the baking drawer) I was confident all was safely hidden.

Once he sat down after dinner I snuck off and moved the presents, balloons etc to the sunroom - he'd never find them in there - and duly collected them after he headed off to bed.

The slip twixt cup and lip? Nick had gone through there to watch American football and Richard went in to talk to him. I didn't realise til I got them and Nick was like, "er, I think he saw the balloons" - NNNOOOOOO!

How careful do you have to be?! It's so unfair. On him as well as me, cos he'll not get the surprise and I won't get to see him getting the surprise. Etc etc. Oh well, now he's immortalised in a blog post instead.

Happy Birthday Richard!

Dismantling Christmas

I HATE taking down all the Christmas decorations and the tree. I guess everyone does, although for some reason Richard is going at it with gusto this year. However I'm trying a new way to make it easier - blasting out Michael Buble's Christmas album (well I did the same while decorating the house so it's a karmic circle, right?) and doing it in stages. Took the cards down on Thursday, the tree down today and will put the ornaments away tomorrow.

Sigh.

Back to the dreichness of everyday winter life.

Oh yes, I forgot - there's still Richard's birthday to get through.

Mac isn't the answer to all my problems

At least, while trying to order a gift card for Richard's birthday, I found the usual problem - can't upload the photo I want to be on the card as it's not recognising the photos in the Photo Library! Is this a mac problem or a me problem?

At least I have the ability to go and get a free training session at the Apple Store. Thank goodness!

Life post Haggis

Well, Haggis left last week and left a wee hole in our lives. Despite his more irritating habits like barking at people when they had the temerity to go upstairs and leave him at the bottom, or watching TV and barking at bits he didn't like (I had to rewind Dr Who three times!) we had got accustomed to him and were sad to see him go.

All except Andy, of course, who isn't a dog person anyway, and got annoyed at him for barking at him every time he went out for a smoke in the middle of the night. So he would get annoyed and speak sharply to him if Haggis barked at him. That, of course, only resulted in Haggis barking at him! No love lost there..

So life has settled back down, Maddie's back to running round after Murphy on walks and the car only has her usual two nuisances to keep an eye on - Haggs was FASCINATED by Gizzy - tried to follow her everywhere, even attempting to climb the radiator to reach her on the windowsill. After three swipes he was getting less fascinated but probably still more of a nuisance than our two.

So long, wee man!